Pain in the hips can occur due to long-term sitting at work, or simply a sedentary lifestyle. Preventing it requires more mobility, in general, and relieving the hip region of pressure.
On the other hand, not many people will experience something they could call pain, but mostly numbness and irritation in the hip region. You might mistake it for something that will disappear in a few hours, but not working towards prevention, and switching from one hip to another while you sit, only makes things worse.
How does hip pain actually occur while we sit?
The most common thing that hurts our hip region while we sit is caused by us sitting in a bad position. It can be any of the two:
- Sitting with an arched back
- Bending to one side
Sitting with an arched back
If we sit with an arched back, laid back into the chair, that will have our body slipping off the chair and our hips, and their tendons, being under pressure for holding the entire body in place. Let us explain.
What happens is that the muscles will start to spasm to save energy and retain the position we are in. That will cause them to lose their ability to be flexible, and will also prevent them from getting “food” from the body for their normal functioning.
In that process, the hips take the hit as the longer we sit like that, the more pressure is put on them, and the tendons that hold them in place. Problems like these can happen:
-Tendonitis – Tendon inflammation
-Enthesitis – Inflammation of the part where tendons insert into the bone
-Bursitis – Inflammation of a small fluid-filled sack that is used to reduce friction between body tissues
All this causes discomfort and pain in the end if left unattended. You can read more about it here.
Bending to one side
This happens mostly when we play games, watch a movie on the couch, or sit in a meeting. The positions are the following:
-We put the foot of one leg under the thigh of the other one
-We cross our legs
-We put the foot of one leg on the chair, and pressure it with our elbow, moving it slightly to a side
When we do this, the entire weight of our body shifts from both hips, and our gluteus maximus, to only one hip. After some time of taking the hit, we get a sore hip as tendons get stretched, and we start to shift to the other one to relieve the hip pain.
After some time of having this practice, both hips will be hurt, and pain will be occurring regularly.
Walking and sitting straight will help in these cases, but doing exercises is the best way to go, as we have already mentioned, mobility is the best prevention. The Eudaemonio app has a number of exercises to help prevent pain in various parts of the body, and the best thing about them is – they are all short and office-optimized!
Pain in the hips and genetics
There are always reasons that pain does or does not occur (or comes way later), and genetics is something that has to be taken into account.
In this case, we can split this into two categories:
- The genetics that helps reduce/delay pain
- The genetics that helps make a sore hip occur faster
Helpful ones
Having a big gluteus maximus is definitely a helpful piece of genetics, as more muscle/mass in this part of the body will help us withstand more pressure and sit correctly. By having a bigger posterior, our back will be straight while we sit (in most cases), and will not force the hip region inward, which is the main problem that creates hip pain.
The not-so-helpful ones
Hip anatomy – If the hip socket is deeper, the hip will be more stable, but at the cost of faster irritation and inflammation in that part of the body due to a larger area of contact between the hip and the hip socket.
Arthritis – This problem makes a hip inflamed, and slowly lose its vitality. After some time with this condition, the hip joints will become less agile, less lubricated, and in constant friction with the hip socket.
Flat feet – The hips will be hurt due to constant pushing for inner rotation, making them take on a position that they are not comfortable in.
Scoliosis – A spinal curve to one side which makes one of the hips receive more pressure than the other. In that case, one hip will be more hurt, and if we sit with bad posture, we will only make things worse.
Preventing a sore hip
If we’re talking about sitting in general, we advise using a Yogi ball. Using the ball for a longer time will help your body automatically learn to sit straight, and not bend forward. It is better to combine it with sitting in a regular chair, as that will bring balance to the spine – you don’t want to overdo it in the beginning, but small steps will do!
Another piece of advice will be to stay active and exercise. By staying active, our body will have the space to feed every part of the body and not lose vitality in muscles or tendons. You may also practice having a few minutes to do some exercise while you work, short, preventive ones, right at your desk.
If you’re searching for an ideal app for that, the Eudaemonio app will fulfill those needs as it has carefully picked, office-oriented exercises that take no longer than 5 minutes and are meant to be done next to an office desk, to achieve maximum efficiency.
You may check it all out here: Eudaemonio app
